Johnny Cash's Son Discusses the Eye-Opening New Documentary About His Dad

A man like Johnny Cash casts a long shadow, but John Carter Cash has managed to carve out an identity for himself as a veteran Nashville producer, novelist, and a recording artist in his own right. At the same time, being the son of a musical icon can be a full-time job, itself. On top of his own career, John Carter's also taken on the complicated responsibility of managing his father's legacy. This Saturday, 12 years after Johnny Cash's death, CMT will air a new documentary featuring appearances by Carter, Rosanne Cash, and Carlene Carter, alongside Eric Church, Sheryl Crow, Merle Haggard, Kris Kristofferson, John Mellencamp, Kid Rock, Rick Rubin, and Willie Nelson. The family's involvement, and the family photos and home movies they contribute to the documentary help Johnny Cash: American Rebel tell Cash's well-known life story from an uncommonly intimate perspective, with his many complications and contradictions intact.

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Esquire.com recently sat down with John Carter in New York City to talk about the project.

Tell me about this new documentary.

Well, it was a little over a year ago that the Cash Trust was approached about possibly doing a standalone documentary that would go in directions, perhaps, that hadn't been tread before. That would speak to people who knew him and could give insights into my father's history, his character, his music, but would also paint a picture of the world that he grew up in and his various influences. Not only cultural influences, but geopolitical influences. It would look deeper into his life, through the words of his friends and business associates. It was intriguing and exciting. The concept was unique. And I feel like it was successful. I truly do.

How do you think this one is different from other documentaries?

It not only looks into Dad's history, it also looks into the world surrounding him, and the America that he lived in. You hear Haggard speak about Dad's various influences in his life when he was young–his music, his religious influences, even the addictions that shaped his life. To get through those things, those darknesses, that was the goal. That no matter what path it treads down, that the point that's made in the end is one of hope. And I believe that that's Dad's enduring legacy. He's a mystery. This film delves into the mystery of who he was ... if we understood everything about him, it wouldn't be mysterious anymore. It wouldn't be interesting. He was a man that could expose his weaknesses, expose his interior darknesses, and never lose his dignity. I can't think of anybody else that could do that. That could do the "Hurt" video at the age that he was when he did it. That could expose all the ways in his life that he fell short. His failures. And not only maintain his dignity, but be exalted for it. It's because it was honest. So this film shows those things.

It's interesting that you brought up the fact that there's still a mystery about him. I've read his book, and it's one of the most honest and open autobiographies that I've ever read, but he still retains this essential sense of mystery despite that openness.

He was...of course you have to have an ego to be a performer. It's impossible, without it, to do what he did, to have that kind of charisma. However, he never lost an interior sense of humility. As my mother would have said, he never grew too big for his britches. In some ways, he maintained the innocence of that hardworking boy who picked cotton with his family, who aspired to see bigger things, who joined the Air Force. Dad was a high-speed Morse code interceptor. He worked for the NSA. He was a spy. He was! I have a friend who's in the government who said, "You realize your dad was in the NSA, right?" I was like, "He was?" But anyway, there was so much more to the man. He never lost that childlike sense of wonderment. He could still be amazed by this city and this view right now.

The documentary makes a point of talking about your dad's activist side, his interest in the world around him and speaking out against what he saw as injustice. I feel like that's an element of his life that gets overlooked in everything else that was going on, but it seems like that was important to him.

It was. And the issues he spoke on were typically the ones that no one else wanted to talk about. The issues with the Native Americans, in the 1960s those weren't at the forefront of everyone else's mind, and Dad did the record Bitter Tears that talked about the standing plight of the Native Americans, and the way they were looked over and disrespected. He went to Wounded Knee. He helped people remember that this is reality, this is how Pine Ridge Indian reservation is right now. The prisoners–you couldn't tell a convict that my father wasn't one of them. It was an empathy, almost, that he had for people in that situation. Because he put himself there. He had that ability of understanding, and saying, "I'm with you." And he could also go into the White House and look Richard Nixon in the eye, stand right up to him. Nixon said, "Can you sing 'Welfare Cadillac' and 'Okie from Muskogee,' and my Dad said, "No sir, those aren't my songs." And he sang a song called "What is Truth" that he wrote himself, a very deep, insightful song, and "The Ballad of Ira Hayes"–he sang that right to Nixon's face. There's not many people like that in the world.

He was also willing to take risks with his career to speak to those kind of issues.

And everyone claimed him. My father claimed no political affiliation. He supported Al Gore because he knew him as a human being. He supported Lamar Alexander, who was the governor of Tennessee, who was a Republican. It was based on the individual. He didn't believe in politics. He based his support for someone on their heart and their integrity.

What's it like to delve so deeply into your father's life? These kind of projects, you really surround yourself with a person, and it seems like it would be a lot different, the fact that it's your dad.

My father saw a separation between Johnny Cash the entertainer, his business, and the person. The good ole boy. He carried that with him. Or he tried to. Sometimes the lines got crossed. Personally, in my life, in many different ways, I see Johnny Cash every day. Johnny Cash is still here. That's comforting. My father has gone on. I can't call him on the phone, but I'm still in contact with him.

You've done pretty well at establishing your own identity and career independent of your dad.

I just finished six records for Loretta Lynn. They're coming out on Sony Legacy, one at a time beginning next year. I've published a novel. Yes, if it wasn't for that balance, and doing other things...but I respect and appreciate this as an adult, and realize that the enduring legacy, and the spirit that endures, is something to be responsible to.

Your father and Loretta Lynn, there's something about that generation of country music artists where it feels like their music comes from a different place than country music these days. Do you think there are any particular values from that generation that we should be trying to hold onto?

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We have an overabundance of influences right now. There's so much at our fingertips. When Loretta Lynn was growing up, she listened to the Carter Family and she listened to people sing at church. It's really hard to find that purity again. It's there. I believe it's about respecting where the foundation and the roots are. What always rattles me, as it rattled my father, are people who don't appreciate the strength of that foundation. If it wasn't for the roots, the branches would wither and die. I believe Dad will be respected in 300 years, like Beethoven. As will Elvis, as will the Carter Family, as will Jimmie Rodgers, Hank Williams. But there's still a lot of good that's happening right now.